FIJI Rugby Union chief executive officer John O’Connor was a relieved man after the final whistle was blown in the 2020 Skipper Cup finals on Saturday.
“What a relief he sighed, it’s over,” O’Connor said.
He congratulated Lautoka for winning the women’s competition and for being consistent throughout the season.
He also congratulated the Nadroga U19 and the Suva senior team for defending their titles this year. This is the second year Nadroga has won the U19 title while Suva has defended their titles for three years in a row.
“These teams are true champions for 2020. They fi nished the points table at the top of their categories and came out strongly today (Saturday) to win their finals so we congratulate all of them,” said O’Connor.
He also congratulated the Naitasiri women’s and men’s teams and the Namosi U19 team for making it into the final and for the very close games. The matches could have gone either way.
When The Fiji Times caught up with the CEO on Saturday, after final presentation on a quick reflection for the season, he testified that all the praise and glory must fi rst be to God the Almighty.
He strongly believed that it was only through his blessing and protection that we were able to kick off the competition and it is only through his power that we were able to complete the competition. He highlighted that the 2020 season was a great challenge amidst COVID-19 and all its uncertainties.
“We were not even sure if we would have a competition and credit needs to go where it is due,” he said.
He thanked the honourable Prime Minister and government for their strong leadership and making tough decisions to ensure Fiji was COVID- 19 contained. He also thanked government for the relaxation of the tight COVID-19 requirements to allow sports to take place with certain crowd levels.
He personally acknowledged and thanked the president of Fiji Rugby Union for his personal support in attending to club games and most of the top provincial matches. He thanked all the unions for their support in the new COVID-19 normal reset and kick-off ensuring we complied with strict government protocols, the new normal, COVID 19 requirements.
“It was a new format and we had the challenges of COVID-19 and I must acknowledge and thank all the unions (eight Skipper and 16 Vodafone Vanua) for the preparation of their teams and their participation for 14 weeks, week in and week out,” he said. This was not an easy task.
He also thanked Fiji Rugby’s loyal sponsors for the domestic competition for their support allowing the two competition to continue.
“While Vodafone and CJ Patel had their own challenges, their continued support meant a great deal in our competition continuing. We also thank our other sponsors, Subrails, Carpenters, Coca-Cola, BLK, Mobil, Fiji Sun, FBC, Paradise Beverage and others who continued support,” O’Connor added.
“Lastly, I thank the staff, all our volunteers, all the match and citing commissioners, all the match officials for their personal commitment and sacrifice in ensuring we were out there, week in and week out, providing service to our customers.”
He highlighted that even though COVID-19 had an impact on our competition, from his experience being involved in rugby administration for some time, he believed it was the most fiercely contested competition ever in the Skipper Cup and Vodafone Vanua competition.
“Every week, we were uncertain of the results and all the games were closely contested. The double-headers which included the Farebrother Challenge has brought a breath of fresh air to the competition resulting in huge turnouts at our matches.
“Most of our venues have had to be closed when we have reached threshold for supporters.” He also thanked World Rugby for their support. On his reflections on the competition format for next year, he highlighted that it was too early to comment and that Fiji Rugby will conduct its review and make relevant recommendations to the Board on the best format for the next year.
He highlighted it was likely that the Skipper Cup competition and the Vodafone Vanua Championship will remain the same with kick off expected to be in late March/April so he urged all the teams to plan their off-season preparation well so they can be ready for kick off.
On recent reports being made that Fiji Rugby Union should increase the number of teams to accommodate Lautoka and Yasawa in the Skipper Cup, he highlighted that the terms of participation this year was very clear that the bottom two teams from the Skipper Cup will be demoted to the Vanua Competition and the top two teams from the Vodafone Vanua competition will be promoted to the Skipper competition.
Therefore, he confirmed that Rewa and Northland will be in the Skipper Cup competition while Yasawa and Lautoka will be competing in the Vodafone Vanua competition. He highlighted that suggestion that we should return to a 12-team competition is wishful thinking and not thought properly.
“We had 12 teams in the competition just a few years ago before we reduced the competition to 10 and now we believe we have the right format with an eight-team and two rounds of competition together with double-headers,” he said. “In the 10-12 team formats due to huge thrashing between the stronger teams and the weaker teams, fans became disengaged and did not come out to support their teams and rugby so every week we will have empty stadiums and parks and only get crowds when the stronger teams play each other.
“The product as such was not attractive to sponsors as such making it diffi cult to support such format because it all comes down to sponsorship and money. We have had good sponsorship support for the current format which is then shared to the teams.”
He, however, was of the view that we really needed to do something about the women’s competition The men’s senior team carries the hope of the union including that of the women’s team in the season.
The men’s teams’ performances in the Skipper Cup will determine the fate of the women’s team, so if the senior team are in the top six, the women’s team will be fortunate to be part of Skipper Cup in the next season.
However, if the men’s senior teams are in the bottom two of the points table in the Skipper Cup, then, their women’s team will have to be relegated to the Vodafone Vanua competition next year despite their consistent performances during the season.
“For instance, Lautoka women’s team won the Skipper Cup beating Naitasiri 10-7 but despite their victory, they will have to compete in the Vodafone Vanua Competition next year because their men’s team finished second last in the points table this season,” he said.
O’Connor highlighted that this is the second time such a situation has happened. In the first year of the women’s competition, Malolo won the competition but their team was relegated to the Vodafone Vanua competition since the senior men’s team finished 7th in the Skipper Cup competition and were relegated.
He confirmed that the women’s team managers have raised their concerns on these arrangements that it was unfair for the women’s team.
Macuata has consistently finished at the top of the Vodafone Vanua women’s competitions but will not get promoted since their men’s team has not performed well.
“This is a matter we are seriously considering and will be looking at ways to assist the women’s rugby competition in 2021,” O’Connor said.
“One option we are considering is to have a separate competition for the women’s teams but this will entirely be dependent on whether we are able to attract good sponsors for the women’s competition. “It will come down to attracting a good sponsor for a separate women’s competition.
“One of our dreams at Fiji Rugby Union is to be the preferred sports for our young girls and women and having a separate women’s competition will allow us to have a girls U19 competition and a separate girls secondary and Kaji competition.
“The FRU also wants to create clear pathways for our young girls who chose rugby as we have done for our young boys.
“We have been discusing this issue internally and have a proposed format and have had discussions with a few potential sponsors that can come on board to sponsor a separate women’s rugby competition,” said O’Connor.
“This would solve this issues that the women will not rely on the men’s results as they have their own competition.
“This way, many more young women will have the opportunity to play rugby resulting in the standard of women’s rugby in the country, lifting to a new level. We are excited about the growth and development of women’s rugby.”
O’Connor highlighted that women having their own competition creates opportunity to further grow the Skipper Cup competition by the formal inclusion of U23 men’s team to replace the women’s team and likewise the oldies competition.
“The competition structure where the U19 and a senior team creates a gap for players from the ages U20 to U24 if they are not selected for their provincial teams and we want to look at retaining these players in our system,” he said.
“Further, we have players who want to be involved in the game after they have retired from competitive rugby and we want to keep these players engaged.”
As the curtain closes for our challenging 2020 domestic competition, amidst his relief that it was over this newspaper was of the view and really appreciate that the CEO and FRU was already focused and keeping their eyes on the future.
